Weve covered the hot debate raging between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church on this site. And weve covered plenty of arguments for and against the Obamacare mandate that businesses, through their insurers, offer free contraception. But we havent covered a defense quite like this. It goes like this: Maybe the founders were wrong to guarantee free Exercise of religion, but they did and the administration needs to respect that.

Maybe the Founders were wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion in the First Amendment but that is what they did and I dont think we have to choose here. She went on to to say that  What [the Obama administration is] doing is guaranteeing people, you know, these Catholic outfits and others cant serve the populations that they were called to serve. Thats a good point. But the comment about the founders seems startling. Newsbusters may have put it best when it said, Hennebergers larger point was defensive of the Catholic Church and of religious liberty. However, her comment on the First Amendment was poorly phrased.

Maybe the Founders were wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion in the First Amendment

Hutcheson believed that the right to judgement or belief was an unalienable natural right.Jefferson was well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.

Maybe the Founding Fathers made that minor “mistake” with the historical perspective, totally missed by this editor, that this country was founded by Protestants and Catholics fleeing religious persecution.

It's not just anti-Catholic. It's anti-Christianity, of any denomination. The left has done a very good job of labeling Christians as anti-intellectual, unthoughtful, and bigoted - best encapsulated by Obama’s ‘They cling to guns or religion’ comment. Ted Turner said that Christianity was a stupid religion. Faith = stupidity, those who deride it based on their ‘superior’ education are ‘cool’. Blacks and Hispanics are given a pass on religion, to some extent, because the left thinks of them as primitive in their educational evolution - being suppressed and all.. The rest of us fall into the categories of ‘dangerous zealots’ or dumb sheep. That's how many on the left think. Of course they are never deserving of derision, because they are all-knowing and progressive.

“’What [the Obama administration is] doing is guaranteeing people, you know, these Catholic outfits and others cant serve the populations that they were called to serve.’ Thats a good point.”

“That’s a good point”!! What’s good about it? What conceivable superior knowledge of this administration could possibly qualify it (or this nitwit columnist) to determine what medical or other services “these Catholic outfits” must offer? Surely, The Blaze isn’t praising such inanity. If so, that’s the end of The Blaze for me.

Not just a right to “health care”, but she embues the government with the right to compell religous institutions to provide “health care” however broadly defined.

Let’s not forget, the founders would, to a man, have vehemently denied that the Constitution said what the Supreme Court held that is said in Roe v. Wade.

However tendentious broadening the definition of “health care” to include what a lot of people would call infanticide, and of a particularly callous nature, might be, the notion that anyone has a Constitutional right to the “health care”, which means, by any definition, the labor and property of third parties, is laughable on its face.

If, according to this burned-out bulb, the Founding Fathers made one mistake; then perhaps they made more. Let’s see what else is a bother: guns, trial by jury, illegal searches, right to one’s property, state’s rights, limited government.

Wait, except for the guns, all those rights have been nullified by SCOTUS.

16
posted on 02/09/2012 9:17:10 AM PST
by NTHockey
(Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners)

“The left has done a very good job of labeling Christians as anti-intellectual, unthoughtful, and bigoted - best encapsulated by Obamas They cling to guns or religion comment. Ted Turner said that Christianity was a stupid religion.”

It's high time the left realize that Jesus Christ is not a religion - He's the Truth.

17
posted on 02/09/2012 9:17:51 AM PST
by MichaelCorleone
(Stop feeding the beast; spend money only with those who support traditional American values.)

Yes. I'm SURE that's all it was. I'm sure the editor of one of the nation's largest newspapers simply lacks the English language skills to clearly state her thoughts and ideas. That being the case, perhaps she should resign...

19
posted on 02/09/2012 9:18:37 AM PST
by WayneS
(Comments now include 25% MORE sarcasm for no additional charge...)

“But the comment about the founders seems startling. Newsbusters may have put it best when it said, Hennebergers larger point was defensive of the Catholic Church and of religious liberty. However, her comment on the First Amendment was poorly phrased.

I think she meant it just the way she said. It reflects the same ideology as BHO’s when he said the Founders made it difficult for him to force Congress and do all that he wanted.

Very disturbing. Our Constitution, religion and WE are all under attack by powerful forces.

I heard the quote on the Roger Hedgecock show yesterday. I dont really think the woman meant to imply she thought freedom of religion was a bad thing. More like, “like it or not, freedom of religion was guaranteed by the founders.” There are plenty of real causes for outrage in the obamacare mandate business, but I dont think this WaPo-ettes commentary is one of them.

36
posted on 02/09/2012 10:05:42 AM PST
by Homer_J_Simpson
("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))

I dont really think the woman meant to imply she thought freedom of religion was a bad thing. More like, like it or not, freedom of religion was guaranteed by the founders.

I actually tried to interpret her remarks that way. However, wouldn't it have been easier to simply phrase her remark the way you did? I think she probably thought she said what you suggest; but the rest sort of "Freudian slipped" out.

It's perfectly in keeping with Hussein's remarks that "the Constitution didn't make any allowances for redistribution of wealth"; that "the constitution makes it harder to govern"; and Ginsburg's remarks that the Muslim Brotherhood should emulate South Africa's constitution rather than ours.

One of the things that’s lost in this debate is that religious organizations are called by their missions to create charities that house and feed the poor, that heal the sick, that educate the young, that support wholesome recreational activities, and so on. The administration and IRS seek to deny that such activities are religious in nature. The IRS only exempts church expenses. The administration seeks to make a distinction between maintaining the aspect of the church that relates to the building and the sermons. A church is much more than that, and so long as it is not a commercial, for profit enterprise, there is no basis to exempt the church but not the hospital. They are all part of the same religious expression.

44
posted on 02/09/2012 10:53:57 AM PST
by Defiant
(If there are infinite parallel universes, why Lord, am I living in the one with Obama as President?)

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